


Stop

by Cumbermarvel (UglyJackal)



Series: Marvel Whumptober 2018 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt Stephen Strange, M/M, Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/Cumbermarvel
Summary: 'No, stop!' he whined, like a wounded dog.





	Stop

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4: "No, stop!"
> 
> (yeah I missed some of the days, bite me)

The fight had been long, and it had been hard. Everyone was exhausted and were all in the medbay, injuries being stitched and bone being set. The clinical taste of the air gave one particular sorcerer horrific flashbacks - to when his hands were more metal than bone, when the pain had been so bad that he could barely breathe, when all he had wanted to do was close his eyes and not open them again.

And it didn’t help that his hands were broken and bleeding after being caught underneath crumbling buildings that had been propped back up with the help of the Eye around his neck. But it couldn’t fix the injuries to his hands.

The doctor was trying to touch. He didn’t want that. It would hurt. It already hurt. The shields that had circled around his fists had taken more of the brunt than his bare skin, but magic couldn’t take all of it. Magic couldn’t take away the pain, couldn’t prevent it. But, Christ, how he wished it could.

The shaking in his nerves, in his bones, in his blood, made the pain worse. The splinters in his bones clicked against each other in a lover’s kiss. The pins that had stepped out of line rattled like a train on a railway line. It hurt. It hurt so much.

And it would be worse if the doctor _touched_.

‘Mr Strange-’

‘Doctor,’ Stephen snarled, his hands raised up against his chest.

‘Doctor,’ the other man corrected, exasperated, ‘I need to clean your hands, they’ll get infected.’

‘I can do it myself.’

‘With hands that can barely keep steady to hold a pen?’ he snapped. ‘I don’t think so.’

Stephen winced at the bite, asteroid belts loaded with salty tears spilling onto the cheeks of the moon.

While the sorcerer was looking away, was distracted, the doctor reached forward and wrapped his hand around the pained wrist. He had good intentions, he just wanted to help another hero, just wanted to cure another patient. But the mage didn’t see that, even though they shared the same mindset.

Stephen screamed. The pain probed it from the very depths of his lungs; murky fingers grabbing it, scratching through his organs, dragging it out of his throat, a jaguar sinking its teeth into the column of the mage’s neck. Teary sobs wracked the air as the pain flared like a wildfire, crackling under his skin, spreading through his veins, nipping at his tendons.

‘N-no, stop,’ he whined, like a wounded dog.

The doctor drew his hands back immediately. He watched this man, so cool and calm against the enemy, come undone from the sheer agony in his hands. He shouldn’t have been surprised - he had seen more than his fair share of heroes break down from pain and terror - but this was a man that had seemed so untouchable, so courageous and so incredibly resilient that it was difficult to believe that he would feel such mortal things as fear and pain.

‘Is there anything I could get you?’ he asked, his tone so much more gentle than it had been before. ‘Anything that would make you feel better? Maybe something that would make you comfortable with having your hands touched.’

There was a pause, in which thoughts ran through Stephen’s head, in which he thought about gentle hands on his. In which he thought about the piercing bite of winter, when his hands were aching, and how the kindest of men had wrapped his scarred hands in a scarf, how the sweetest of men had bought him a hot chocolate, how it wasn’t just the warmth of the drink but the warmth of the man beside him, whose side he had cuddled into, that made the pain subside even for just a moment.

His answer was one mumbled, whimpering word. ‘Scotty.’

The doctor left the room. While he was gone, the pain burned itself out a little, only a little, even though the coal that settled in his bones were still smouldering.

Then in walked the sun itself. Stephen’s eyes, rings of Saturn, lit up as he saw him. His cupid-bow lips stretched into a grin. Shaking, agonised hands reached out, desperate to be held by a touch as gentle as a swan feather.

With his arm cradled in a rose-red-stained sling and his face bruised like a peach, Scott Lang approached the side of Stephen’s bed. He didn’t hold onto the mage’s hand, seeing the blood and the bruises that stood in stark contrast to the pale, spider-web scars. Instead, he put his hand on the man’s leg and shifted his body as close to the other as he could.

Like a magnet drawn to steel, Stephen rested his head against Scott’s neck, cuddling into the warmth that leaked from the hero’s pores. He shut his eyes and pressed his nose into the other’s skin, drinking in the sugar-sweet smell that made his mouth taste of ice cream. Scott put his arm around Stephen’s shoulders, pushing his smile into the taller man’s forehead.

‘Your arm okay?’ the mage mumbled.

‘Just a sprain, it’ll be fine,’ Scott said, ‘your hands though-’

‘Please… Scotty, please,’ Stephen whimpered, ‘please don’t let him touch my hands. It hurts. It hurts so much, Scotty, please.’

‘Okay, okay,’ the former thief said, kissing Stephen’s forehead lightly, ‘but he’s gotta touch ‘em so that they don’t hurt, yeah?’

The sorcerer shook his head. ‘No… no, it hurts too much,’ he whined, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s doing; I don’t trust him, he wasn’t there when I injured my hands. He doesn’t know how sensitive they are. He doesn’t-’

Scott cut him off with a gentle kiss to his lips. ‘I understand, walnut,’ he whispered, ‘but Tony wouldn’t let you go to a doctor that didn’t know what he was doing, okay?’

The sorcerer nodded weakly.

‘Would you be willing, Doctor Strange, for me to put you under a general anaesthetic?’ the doctor asked.

Stephen stiffened, anxiety gripping his insides. He looked up to Scott, looking for reassurance in the bright topaz eyes. And he found it.

He always did.

‘I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong, walnut,’ he said.

It was enough to make Stephen relax again. He was in the arms of the gentlest lover he had ever known. The gentlest of hands caressed his aching body and, even as his arm stung with the pinch of the needle, he felt his pain numb.

It was the calmest he had ever felt in a hospital.

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/stephenstrangestan


End file.
